S.C. warns of bottleneck on new Back River Bridge

South Carolina is worried about Georgia’s plan to build a new Back River Bridge.

Specifically, state and local officials are warning of a bottleneck. They fear motorists on a potentially four-lane U.S. 17 trying to enter the new two-lane bridge between Savannah and Jasper County will hit a standstill. U.S. 17 is two lanes.

But transportation officials from both states say any design concerns about traffic jams would be addressed in the future widening of U.S. 17.

Still, concerns remain, especially since roadway funding is elusive and the projects themselves — often in various phases — may slip off schedule.

One South Carolina official called it a mess “so bad that it’s comical.”

Marty Sauls, president of the Jasper County Chamber of Commerce, warned that If the bridge is frequently choked with traffic and wrecks, people and commerce will avoid the area, which would harm the regional economy.

“That’s going to deter commerce from coming across state lines from Carolina to Georgia and vice versa because of the traffic situation,” said Sauls, who also serves on the County Council.

“It’s a deterrent any way you look at it.”

Still, South Carolina officials have not turned against Georgia.

“What we haven’t done is we haven’t communicated properly with Georgia to discuss possibilities of widening that bridge to a four-lane bridge,” said Sauls.

South Carolina leaders also acknowledged they don’t have as much of a say in the project. Federal funds will cover 80 percent of the project’s cost, and the rest will be split, with Georgia will shouldering 90 percent and South Carolina paying 10 percent, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation.

Jasper County administrator Andy Fulghum urged the S.C. Department of Transportation to “reach out to your counterparts in Georgia,” in a letter Thursday.

“I think the folks at SCDOT are doing all they can do to help, they just aren’t in a position to negotiate a bi-state arrangement when they are not the lead agency,” said Fulghum in an email. He noted that the infrastructure bank sent the county and the city of Hardeeville $4 million to design the new Exit 3 off of Interstate 95.

“We certainly don’t mean to appear to be ungrateful,” said Fulghum. “We are just frustrated at the apparent lack of bi-state communication and coordination on this particular project.”

Some were also surprised that Georgia awarded the $14.4 million Back River Bridge contract to an Atlanta firm a full week before the April 12 end of South Carolina’s public comment period on the project.

“I can’t believe it’s to the point now that they’ve already let the contract,” said Jasper County Council chairman Henry Etheridge. “We couldn’t have stopped that.”

The new bridge is scheduled to open in January 2016. It will replace the current, nearly 60-year-old structure, and will be wider, with eight-foot shoulders in each direction and stand three feet higher than the original.

“I don’t know whether South Carolina dropped the ball and didn’t get involved in that earlier on,” said Etheridge.

Records show South Carolina officials had argued for a wider Back River Bridge nearly five years ago.

Representatives of both states’ transportation agencies, the Chatham County - Savannah Metropolitan Planning Commission, and others met in June of 2008 to assess infrastructure needs related to the proposed Jasper Ocean Terminal.

A summary report from the meeting shows SCDOT had called for the new Back River Bridge to have four lanes. But the document reads, “GDOT is pursuing a two-lane bridge because of potential impacts to wildlife refuge and delays may require bridge to be weight restricted.”

Responding to South Carolina’s concerns, Robert Murphy, senior project manager for Georgia DOT, said in a statement Thursday: “Our bridge and U.S. 17 will operate as it does now.”

He also indicated it was up to South Carolina to offer the next remedy.

“Once South Carolina widens U.S. 17, they will need to build the second two-lane bridge across the Back River,” said Murphy. “This will alleviate any bottleneck.”

South Carolina transportation officials are working on it.

The U.S. 17 widening project is proposed for nearly 5 miles from S.C. 315 in South Carolina to the U.S. 17/Savannah Harbor Parkway Interchange in Georgia, according to Mark Lester, SCDOT director of planning and environmental.

“Because of funding constraints, the project may be built in multiple phases,” he said in an email.

“When the time comes, we anticipate that a parallel bridge structure will be built next the new bridge that GDOT is about to construct.”

Rep. Bill Bowers, D-Hampton, said a two-lane Back River Bridge “is clearly inadequate for the traffic flow even today.”

He and other elected officials pressed the case for a four-lane bridge to the region’s state transportation commissioner, Harrison Rearden, on Wednesday.

But both Bowers and Lester noted how hard it is for South Carolina to capture roadway funding.

“Our small state of South Carolina has the fourth largest road system to maintain, coupled with the lowest gas tax to support roads,” said Bowers. “Therefor, it is very difficult to do anything but patch and secure our roads.”

Lester said the parallel bridge structure planned alongside the new Back River Bridge and the U.S. 17 widening are pieces of the same project. The completion date of each piece depends on how the project is phased, he said.

South Carolina has not yet identified all of the funding it will need for the U.S. 17 widening.

Some, including Sauls and Rearden, said it may be time for the two states’ transportation secretaries and perhaps both governors to work on assuring the new bridge has four lanes.

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So we are worried about a bottleneck on that bridge but I haven't heard a thing about the increasing chance for a bottleneck once the flyover bridge of the Bluffton Parkway connects to a 3 lane 278 (making 4 lanes total) going into a 2-lane Hilton Head bridge.

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